


Apparition

by DeathknightQ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:54:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeathknightQ/pseuds/DeathknightQ
Summary: Teyla doesn't remember who she is, where she is, or why – only that if the soldiers catch her, she will be taken away.
Kudos: 6





	Apparition

Teyla opened her eyes. It was day, the sky above blue with white clouds. There were no trees to obscure her view, which seemed odd, somehow. She pushed herself up on her elbows. She was in a field surrounded by a white-gold plant she did not recognize. It seemed to be a grain, the seed-heads bowing under the weight of their burdens. The grain-plant rows ended not far from her, giving way to wild grasses that, in turn, gave way to dense woods. There was a man in the woods.

“Who're you?” His hair was wound strangely, neither a braid nor a tangle. He seemed familiar. His clothes did not.

“I do not know,” Teyla said, standing. She looked down. She did not recognize her own clothes, either, but she could not remember what they were supposed to be. 

“Me, neither. Place seems familiar.”

“Yes.” Familiar, but alien. “Papers.” The thought came unbidden to her mind, with a sudden burst of fear. If she did not have her papers-- She didn't know what. Only that it was frightening.

There was a plain bag next to her. Teyla picked it up. Inside were two apples, something wrapped in a cloth napkin, another object wrapped in cloth, a small jar of amber liquid, and her papers. She was Teyla Emmagan of Milesovice, information she shared with the tall man in the woods.

“Ronon Dex,” he read off papers he'd presumably found in the pocket of his long coat. Teyla walked over to him. Their papers were of the same format, with the same scrawling and dotting script that Teyla could read perfectly well but knew she'd never seen before in her life. Both papers listed the same village.

“Think we knew each other?” Ronon was a head taller than her, but they both had dark skin and eyes. 

“I think we are family,” Teyla said, “though I am certain I am married to another. ” 

“Siblings. Women's last names change when they get married.”

“No,” Teyla said, knowing with crystal clarity the same way she knew she should not be able to read the writing on her papers. “Emmagan is not a last name.” It said so on her papers, but it was not. “It is a title.” The title of what?

Ronon was frowning.

“Dex isn't a title.” He was clearly searching for what title he did have.

“Specialist?” It wasn't listed on the papers, but it sounded right.

“Yeah--”

“You there!”

Teyla startled, turning around to face the direction of the voice. It was a man standing on the nearby road. There were two of them, in green pants and jackets. Their boots were black, as were their weapons. Teyla felt the same fear as when she'd thought she'd lost her papers. These men were what she'd been afraid of.

“What are you doing?”

“We are traveling to the next village,” Teyla said, forcing herself to smile. “We stopped to take our repast.”

The soldiers were coming for her, one ahead of the other. Teyla wanted to run, but with no weapon of her own and no plan, she would surely face defeat. Teyla held out her papers, as if that was the only thing she could imagine the soldier wanted. Ronon followed her lead.

“Reason?” the nearest man asked curtly.

“Visiting my mother. I did not wish to travel alone, so Ronon agreed to come with me.” Teyla's heart was pounding, but she did not let it show on her face.

“These seem to be in order,” the soldier said curtly. He offered them back their papers, then took the bag and searched it. “But don't dawdle. It might give someone the impression you're up to something.” The soldier gave her a quelling glare as he handed back the bag.

“Thank you, sir, we won't.”

The soldiers turned around and headed back to the road. Teyla sat down. She did not think for a moment the soldiers weren't still watching. Inside one of the napkins were two round bread-items. Ronon took a bite out of his. It was filled with fruit. Teyla unwrapped the other napkin. There were two small pickled sausages inside. They were spicy and slightly sour, very good. They felt like a treat, something special.

Ronon took a sip out of the jar. “Beer,” he identified.

Teyla knew she did not like beer: she had an almost-memory of a sharpness with a bitter aftertaste. Nevertheless, it was the only thing to drink. Teyla thinned her mouth. _It will give me strength._ She took a sip.

This was nothing like the beer she could almost remember having before. It was mellow and smooth, and went very well with the sausage. It quenched a thirst she had not realized she had. Teyla finished the delicious sausage (she knew she'd never had it before even though she'd apparently packed it herself). She had her fruit dumpling, sweet and sticky, next. She ate the apple last, its crispness cleaning her palate.

They saved some of the better-than-beer beer for the walk.

“I say we go that way,” Ronon said as Teyla packed away the cloth napkins and the jar. He pointed up the road.

“Why?”

“No reason.”

“I think we should follow the soldiers,” Teyla said. “It will look suspicious if we don't turn up at the village.” Ronon grunted, which Teyla took to mean assent.

They followed the winding road in silence. Ronon wasn't a conversationalist and Teyla was thinking. Her papers said they were in Czechoslovakia. On the one hand, Teyla knew she had never been to such a place before. Yet, here she was. She could not remember how she'd gotten here. She could not remember where she was supposed to be. She knew Emmagan was a title, that Ronon was family, that she was married and had a child, and that she'd had those fruit dumplings before. Filled with a different fruit, yes, and in a vastly different circumstance. Teyla concentrated on the taste of the dumpling, trying with all her might to remember.

_... bittersweet fruit surrounded by sweet bread, the patter of the swirling dotty language being muttered in between questions in a different language, a language she understood..._

_She was describing..._

_… describing a soup to someone who could cook. Someone was cooking for her, letting her taste each stage... too salty, not enough tuttleroot, not thin enough... The one who had originally made it had passed on to the next life. Teyla missed her. She missed everyone who knew how to make the soup, they were gone and only she remained, Teyla who couldn't make decent tuttleroot soup to save her life..._

_… craving the soup in the dead of night, a craving she knew was part of the baby growing inside her, and so homesick for a home that didn't exist anymore, that might never exist again..._

_She'd come to the mess to valiantly try to make it herself, only to find another cooking food from home. A friend who could cook masterfully – a trait her people valued the same way his people valued physical beauty. It was an irony they shared, being considered plain to their own kind but alluring to the alien culture they had suddenly found themselves living with._

_A friend who was sympathetic and kind, giving her some of his fruit dumplings and listening to her confess her loneliness and fright in a way she could not to those who relied on her strength, all the while trying to make a soup he'd never tasted based on description and having another taste as he went._

_He'd succeeded. She'd eaten her soup, the hot liquid filling the hole inside her soul, while her friend talked of his own home. He did not miss his people, only the food and the birds. He'd left his people, lured onward by the promise of a crystal city he'd dreamed of as a child, and driven away by memories too painful to bear that he had been constantly reminded of. Memories of loss and poverty, of oppression, of dark deeds done by soldiers, of people vanishing at their hands, human hands, humans who had become little more than Wraith..._

Teyla halted, reaching out to grab Ronon's arm. It was painful to remember, an ache that clenched inside her brain, but remember she did.

“This is his home,” she said. “The one who made the dumplings.” She could not remember his name or his face.

“Yeah,” Ronon said, sounding slightly dazed. “I remember him, too. Maybe he's in the village.”

“Yes,” Teyla said. The village seemed right. Something was waiting in the village.

They reached the town almost an hour later. It was small, barely a handful of buildings. One was an inn, and there was a commotion outside. The two soldiers from before were dragging a struggling man from the inn. The man had pale skin like the soldiers, with dark hair that stuck up at all angles. His knuckles were bloody, as was his lip. Two other soldiers followed him, dragging a different man from the inn. This one was also pale, but not lanky. He was also struggling much less effectively.

“I'm telling you, there's got to be a mistake,” the bulkier man was protesting.

They both seemed as familiar as Ronon, more familiar than the villagers who were all pointedly not attracting attention to themselves.

A tall, rangy and pale man with blue eyes and a wide mouth was standing next to her, watching the scene in horror. He was holding a wheelbarrow full of rods and string for straightening saplings.

_Weapons._ Diplomacy wouldn't be needed, even if it had a hope in Hell of working.

Teyla took one of the rods and snapped it in half. Ronon took the man's work knife.

Ronon hollered a battle cry as they charged into the fray. Teyla lashed out with her rods at the nearest soldier's stomach, incapacitating him, her arms moving so fast they felt like they were moving themselves. She struck the soldier next to the first, blocking his arm with one rod and striking his leg with the other. She could hear the commotion behind her and knew (though she knew not how) that the lanky one had taken advantage of the distraction to attack the third soldier, that Ronon had taken the fourth, and that the loud-mouthed man had ducked.

Teyla grabbed the first soldier as he lunged at her, using his momentum to plow him into his companion. She struck him sharply with both rods across the back of the skull. The first soldier's unconscious body hampered the second.

There was a loud crack, like the snapping of her rod. She looked up. The lanky one held the third soldier's gun and had shot the second. The fourth soldier's head lolled at an unnatural angle, the third lay unconscious on the ground.

“Hey, we know you guys,” the loud-mouthed man breathed. The lanky one's eyes were dark with some inner conflict. He lowered the gun.

“I am Teyla Emmagan,” she introduced herself. “This is Ronon Dex.”

“McKay, Rodney McKay,” said the loud one, his blue eyes wide.

“John Sheppard.” The lanky one's voice was clipped, tight, and somehow laconic at the same time. “I don't suppose you know what the Hell we're doing here?”

“We do not.”

“You have to go,” said the man with the tree-materials. He dropped his wheelbarrow. “The others'll have heard the gunshot.”

“Parrish is right,” said another pale man (were she and Ronon the only ones on this world with dark skin?). He had blue eyes like Parrish, but he was shorter with an air of steadiness and competence. He was pulling foodstuffs from the barrel next to him and putting them in a burlap bag. He held the bag out to Sheppard. “Take this. Head west. The woods aren't far from that side of the village. We'll stall them as much as we can.”

Teyla exchanged her rods for the first soldier's gun. Escape seemed like a good plan.

“Thanks,” Sheppard said. Teyla nodded her agreement. It seemed natural that these men were helping, that the eerily-familiar faces of the villagers wouldn't turn on them even though they'd undoubtedly brought trouble with them.

They started off at a crouching scrabble, keeping the buildings between them and the rest of the village. Ronon covered their tracks as best they could. Once they reached the woods they ran until McKay couldn’t run any longer.

“Just-- have-- to-- catch my breath,” he panted, sitting on the ground only to lay down.

“Why do we keep you around?” Ronon snapped.

“The-- power of my-- mind.”

“Give it a rest, Chewie,” Sheppard said laconically. They all accepted McKay's answer, though judging by their expressions neither Sheppard nor Ronon could remember what it meant. Teyla couldn't.

“These woods are like a city – how are we going to get anywhere?” McKay complained.

“It's not like that matters, McKay, when we don't even know where we're going.”

“Or why,” Teyla chimed in. Her gun felt familiar in her hand as she scanned the woods. “Do either of you remember who you were before?”

“Nothing,” McKay said promptly, taking off his shoe to dig out a rock.

Sheppard paused, then said, “I think I was a soldier. Not like _the_ soldiers, but– killing that guy didn't bug me like I thought it would.”

“It would explain our martial skills,” Teyla said softly. A team of warriors, then, with a... a scientist along. Yes, that was right. A very good one, good enough to be worth the loudness and complaining.

Teyla heard a noise and turned, her gun coming back up. Sheppard's weapon had been raised as well. Ronon was poised with his knife, and McKay had stood up.

It was a bird. It was light gray, with dark gray bands on its wings and a dark gray tail. There was an iridescent band of green around its throat. The bird walked closer to them on its orange feet, then cocked its head to peer up at them with one eye. It fluttered up to a branch, then peered back at them.

“Just a bird,” Sheppard said. “Look, if we want to run for it we're going to need some kind of map. And shelter. It probably gets pretty cold at night.”

The bird fluttered away, then back again. 

“I think it wishes us to follow it,” Teyla said, the familiar feeling of the fruit dumplings back again.

“A bird?” McKay spluttered. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Can you think of something better?” Teyla said, turning to fix McKay with a stern look, her eyebrows raised. “The bird is familiar.”

“Pigeon,” Sheppard stated.

“I am not following a flying rat into the middle of the forest,” McKay declared, setting his jaw. “That's insane.”

The pigeon took to the air, sailed over McKay, then flipped back and dived. The pigeon's wings wings battered against the back of McKay's head, making him holler and wave his hands. Urgency crackled in the air. They were running out of time, Teyla knew down to her bones.

“Would you shut up?” Ronon snapped in a low voice. “Half the woods can hear your screaming.”

The bird flipped up and around and dove again, and McKay stumbled forward.

“Alright, all right,” McKay said, and on seeing Ronon's glare, hissed, “all right. Follow the bird it is. Ludicrous.”

The bird flew ahead, keeping just within sight. It led them twisting through the trees, up sharp embankments, down switchbacks that never seemed to end. He stopped only when they fell behind, and pressed on as soon as they caught up. Teyla did not complain. McKay did so quietly at Ronon's behest. 

The green-uniformed soldiers patrolled the woods. When they could, they hid. When it was faster, they fought.

Finally the pigeon led them over an embankment. Teyla stopped, peering through the bushes below. There were two paths down into the clearing, one before them and one on the other side. In the center of the clearing was a group of soldiers. They were guarding an orb three feet across. There was a silver box embedded in one side. From the box ran silver and black cords that embedded themselves in the flayed flesh of the sphere.

“Wraith.” Teyla's voice went cold.

“And Genii,” McKay whispered. “How do I know that?”

“Doesn't matter,” Sheppard said. “Think that thing's why we can't remember anything?”

“Gotta be,” Ronon grunted.

“Can you shut it down, Rodney?” Teyla asked.

“Yeah,” McKay said. “Yeah, I think I can. I'll need something to interface with it.”

“That device will do, will it not?” There was a black tablet in a cloth cover beside the orb.

“Yeah,” McKay said.

“Ronon and the pigeon will distract the guards,” Teyla said, relaying the plan as she thought of it. “Get as many of them to run after you as you can then double-back. Sheppard and I will deal with the rest. Rodeny, your time will be limited, so work quickly.”

“Got it.” Sheppard's voice was tight. Controlled. Ruthless. A soldier's, as he'd said. “One, two, three.”

Ronon leapt up and the bird flew down. Ronon yelled as he ran, the guards' bullets dusting the trees and bushes around him as he pelted down the incline, across the clearing, and back up the other side. Four of the guards gave chase. All of them were watching him, except the one on the left being battered by the pigeon's wings.

She and Sheppard opened fire from their vantage point. The guards turned to face the new threat. Four of them gave chase. They scrambled up the incline, hiding behind trees as they pushed forward. The guards still in the clearing were firing, too, trying to trap the intruders under a hail of suppressing fire.

One guard was shot, then another.

Teyla's gun clicked. Out of bullets.

“Get McKay to the device,” she ordered Sheppard.

She tucked and rolled down the hill, rocks and branches bruising her thighs and ribs. The sound of gunfire was everywhere, striking the ground around her.

Teyla landed on the topmost soldier. She felt the bite of a bullet in her leg, but it was too late. Her momentum carried the soldier down the hill, a tangle of arms and legs, only to crash into the second. She heard Sheppard and McKay running down behind her.

Everything hurt: ribs, the gunshot wound in her leg, her back, her arms, even her head.

_I must not fail._ Her people depended on her. She fought through the haze. The soldier beneath her was dazed, his gun still in one hand. Teyla reached for it. The man's hand tightened as he fought her for the gun, hanging on for dear life. 

The other soldier's hand closed on her ankle. He was going to try to crawl up her, to either take the gun because he'd lost his own or to try to break her neck.

Teyla tried to pinch down on the delicate knuckle at the base of the thumb. Her hands didn't have the strength.

Everything was hazy. She had to have hit her head on the way down. The pain was too great to be otherwise, or she'd been shot worse than she thought.

She was running out of time.

_Hurry! Hurry, do prdele!_ The voice in her mind was desperate. Exhausted. It didn't know how much longer it could hold on.

Teyla bit down on the guard's hand and tasted blood. He howled in pain and let go. Teyla grabbed the gun. She turned at the waist. She fired on the last three guards. They dropped. The way was clear.

Relief--

Briefly felt. Agony seared Teyla's side.

The last guard. She looked down. His knife was embedded in her side.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh crap,” McKay's voice rang in her ears.

A red dot appeared on the soldier's head and he dropped. It wasn't a dot, then, but a shot that hadn't missed.

“Teyla!” Ronon yelled.

“Focus,” Teyla ground out, looking at McKay. “The device.”

“Yeah, yeah,” McKay said, grabbing the tablet.

“Keep watch!” Teyla ordered through the pain as Sheppard moved away from McKay. She bit down on her lip. _We must not fail._ Ronon was ripping up his coat, pressing the cloth around the knife. McKay was typing frantically.

_Hurry!_

“Who?” Ronon asked.

“The pigeon,” Teyla gasped. “Hurry, Rodney!”

“I'm going!” McKay shouted, strangled and angry and panicked. The eleventh hour.

“Got it!” McKay's face changed, brilliant and jubilant. This was what he meant about the power of his mind, she remembered now–

The world went white–

And she was lying at the base of the stairs in the Gateroom. The knife wound and gunshot wounds were gone. The pain in her side, back, legs, and head remained. She had, after all, rolled headfirst down the stairs.

“What the Hell?” Sheppard exclaimed. The sphere was still there, as was Ronon beside her. Rodney and his tablet remained.

New was the body lying beside the sphere. Blue shirt, wild hair, glasses.

Zelenka. The voice of the pigeon, the maker of the dumplings.

“Damn it,” Ronon swore, and Teyla could see why. Zelenka's nose, eyes, and ears were bleeding. Teyla pushed herself up.

“Oh my God!” Keller's voice came from above. She must have been in Woolsey's office.

Ronon knelt over Zelenka, pulling back the lid of one eye. Whatever he saw alarmed him.

“Dial the Beta site,” Ronon ordered Chuck, who was looking around in confusion. “Now!”

“Right,” Chuck said, dialing without question. Good man. The whir-click of the gate dialing began, just audible beneath Sheppard's demand for information.

“Keller to infirmary, I need a gurney,” Keller said, pushing past Sheppard.

“We need to get him out of here,” Ronon said, moving to pick Zelenka up.

“You can't just move him like that!” Keller said, reaching out to grab Ronon's wrists. 

“Ronon–”

“There's too many people here,” Ronon argued, “if we don't get him away he'll never wake up.”

“I need to get him under a scanner, figure out what's wrong!”

“What the Hell is going on here?” Sheppard yelled.

“You are wasting time!” Teyla shouted at them both, the pain forgotten, banished by the urgency written in every line of Ronon's body. Teyla pulled Keller away from Ronon by the arm. Ronon did not need to be told to go. “Our peoples have lived in this galaxy for thousands of years, and just because the Wraith destroy us the instant we invent any sort of technology for ourselves does not make us ignorant nor savages! Once Radek is safe, we will radio you.”

Teyla jogged as quickly as her injuries would allow, passing through the event horizon just before the gate disengaged. She stepped through on the beta site, an uninhabited world of relative safety. If the alpha site was compromised, this would be the new secondary location for Atlantis. If a member of the Expedition was being tracked or followed, they would Gate here to either radio for help or else move on to the Alpha site or Atlantis itself. As such, there was no sign of Lantean presence: no tents, no caches of weapons.

No people.

“What was that device?” Teyla asked as Ronon laid Dr. Zelenka out on the ground.

“Genii used to use it a long time ago. Send it through the Gate, it makes people see each other as enemies. They fight till there's no one left alive.”

“How was Dr. Zelenka able to withstand the illusion long enough to modify it?” The Genii modifications would explain why her Wraith DNA hadn't protected her.

“He didn't, not with the computer. He pulled the illusion through himself up here,” Ronon touched his forehead. “You remember the Kiersan Fever. It takes a lot to really wipe his memory. It's how we were able to lob it back at them, on Sateda. Once the Genii realized it wasn't full proof, they stopped using it.”

It was probably a relic another people had repaired. It didn't answer how they got past the iris, but since neither of them had been in the Gateroom when it happened, they wouldn't know that till they radioed Atlantis. The last she recalled she'd been walking back from meditating on the pier. The illusion hadn't probably hadn't been able to account for the transporters, so it had made do with walking through woods.

“Will he be all right?”

“Maybe. Lotta people in Atlatnis. A few days here, away from the noise, and he'll wake up on his own. Or he won't. You better go tell the Earthers before they come charging through. Make it worse.”

Teyla nodded. She turned and dialed home. When she stepped through the gate, she relayed the information on the device to Woolsey and Sheppard, as well as Ronon's remedy.

Keller, predictably, protested. 

“The Shrine of Talus was real,” Teyla cut her off. There was no point in letting the doctor build up any momentum. “It gave Rodney the reprieve we said it would. How is this any different?” Teyla looked at Keller and Woolsey defiantly.

“She's got a point,” Sheppard said.

It was infuriating that Keller and Woolsey both backed down as soon as Sheppard agreed. Teyla hid her annoyance behind a polite acceptance. It would serve her no good to antagonize them now, not when the IOA's prejudices were so clearly ingrained and she'd already got what she wanted.

“You should still stop by the infirmary,” Keller said. “Colonel Sheppard said you rolled down the stairs. You could have a concussion or broken ribs.”

“I am fine–”

“She's right. I'll chuck Ronon some supplies through the Gate, not that he needs 'em.” The concern in Sheppard's voice and his confidence in Ronon's skill ameliorated Teyla's fury somewhat.

She submitted to the exam and Keller's treatments. They did ease the pain. Teyla went to her quarters. Kanaan was there, with Torren. She repeated the story to her husband, stacking the culturally-universal blocks with her son.

“What was it we saw?”

“A version of Dr. Zelenka's homeland when he was growing up. It was different, I think.” Probably to compensate for the clumping of the Atlantis personnel and the structure of the city.

“He'll be fine,” Kanaan said soothingly.

“I'm sure he will,” Teyla replied smoothly, as if she was not worried. Kanaan knelt beside her. He caressed her cheek, turning her face to meet his.

“He must. How else will I be able to get him to teach me how to make those sausages you enjoyed?” Kanaan smiled. Teyla reciprocated the expression, but only on the outside.

Inside, she worried still.  
~*~


End file.
